SONIC ACTS ACADEMY 2020
T. J. Demos
22 February 2020 – De Brakke Grond, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Celebrated writer T. J. Demos rarely leaves a seat empty at his talks on politics, ecology and art, often attending to decoloniality within nature. His most recent book addresses the occlusions embedded in the academic use of the term ‘Anthropocene’ (human-caused planetary change) in shielding problems as opposed to opening inroads for change made accessible by artists.
This presentation discusses the ongoing research and exhibition project, Beyond the End of the World, directed by T. J. Demos of the Center for Creative Ecologies at University of California, Santa Cruz (beyond.ucsc.edu). In the wake of the end of multiple worlds, we already live in a post-apocalyptic present following countless genocides and colonialisms. With reference to diverse traditions of the oppressed, this year-long research project addresses what lies beyond dystopian catastrophism, past and present end-of-world narratives, and how we can imagine and cultivate radical futures of social justice and ecological flourishing.
T. J. Demos is an award-winning writer and Professor of Visual Culture at University of California, Santa Cruz and Director of its Center for Creative Ecologies. He writes widely about contemporary art, global politics and ecology and is the author, most recently, of Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today (2017) and Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology (2016). Demos co-curated Rights of Nature: Art and Ecology in the Americas, at Nottingham Contemporary in 2015 and organised Specters: A Ciné-Politics of Haunting, at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 2014. He is currently working on a Mellon-funded research, exhibition and book project dedicated to the questions: ‘What comes after the end of the world?’ and ‘How can we cultivate futures of social justice within capitalist ruins?’
Interview by Oleg Khardatsev and Zhanna Guzenko / Fridaymilk
Fridaymilk (RU) is a well-known media platform in Murmansk, Russia, run by a team of 10 people who are eager to promote new life approaches and facilitate discussions and conversations on issues in the Barents Region.
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